


Smile Again

by Remember When (scribblemyname)



Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Friendship, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-30
Updated: 2015-10-30
Packaged: 2018-04-28 23:38:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5109695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribblemyname/pseuds/Remember%20When
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil wasn't used to having to worry about rejection. She didn't have it in her to fall in love. She didn't really care if one beau or another decided to play elsewhere. There were so many nice young men to be with that she didn't need a particular one. She definitely wasn't used to this feeling of wondering if she could be strong enough or good enough to be someone's wife.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smile Again

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fluffybun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluffybun/gifts).



_That first day I came I saw a young man sitting opposite me at the table, smiling at me as if he known me from my cradle._

* * *

The first time Philippa Gordon met Jonas Blake, he was smiling at her warmly. That was her first impression of him: warm, smiling, friendly. As she later wrote Anne, he exuded niceness. He was always pleasant, and she loved to listen to him talk about anything and everything, his former Redmond days, his plans for the future, the calling on his life and his experiences already in serving others in ministry. Somehow it took a while for it to sink in that he was indeed going to be a minister. He was fun and full of stories that made her laugh.

Then she saw the real Jonas that first Sunday and everything changed.

Phil wasn't used to having to worry about rejection. She didn't have it in her to fall in love. She didn't really care if one beau or another decided to play elsewhere. There were so many nice young men to be with that she didn't need a particular one. She definitely wasn't used to this feeling of wondering if she could be strong enough or good enough to be someone's wife.

But Jonas Blake was different.

* * *

The first time Jonas saw Philippa Gordon, she was smiling at him. Not him particularly perhaps. She entered the dining room with a bounce in her step and greetings on her lips for all the respectable ladies gathered and didn't retract the smile when her gaze finally came to him.

Jonas had experience with running from God and the calling he didn't want. That life was full of hard work and service and held little room for the kinds of glories available to a young man in the prime of his life. In Redmond, Jonas was far more focused on his studies and sports and trying to enter a career that would earn him an excellent living. But it never fit, and he could never find more than frustration in the classes he took.

He would never be a lawyer or a doctor or any of the professions that could dare to ask for Phil's hand in marriage. She was not unknown, but came from a wealthy well-known family, and yet somehow they went from laughing together and talking together as the only people their age at the shore that summer to him wondering what it would be like to kiss those red lips of hers, so often smiling with mirth, what it would be like to have the right to touch that glossy chestnut hair.

She welcomed his attentions, but he knew that whether Phil approved or not, her family never would.

* * *

"You must come up to Kingsport often to see me," Phil extended the invitation at the end of the summer. "We have delightful evenings on Fridays, and you can meet everyone I've been telling you about."

What Jonas _should_ have said was, 'I shouldn't.' What came out of his mouth when he opened it was, "I'd like that."

Phil's grin went crooked and sweet, and he found himself smiling back.

* * *

_She's going to a dance, and she's got the sweetest dress for it—creamy yellow silk and cobwebby lace. It just suits those brown tints of hers._

* * *

"Anne." Philippa appeared in the doorway of Anne's room upstairs, arms full of creamy silk dresses for review. "Which dress do you think Jonas will like better?"

"You goose!"

Phil just bustled in anyway. "I put on the yellow dress because it's Father's favorite on me, then knew in my heart of hearts the pink would look prettier."

Anne laughed and watched Phil hold up one dress then the other. "You know Jonas will like you whatever you wear," she reminded Phil gently.

"Well, _yes,_ but…"

Born a seesaw, ever to teeter. Anne pronounced in favor of the yellow.

"I should say pink. I _adore_ pink and can never wear it, but yellow is your color."

So Phil trailed downstairs in a glory of sunshine yellow to be the life of Patty's Place on a holiday evening while Priscilla plied their many comers with the cookies she and Anne had baked earlier. Stella nobly kept the cats away from the most rambunctious of their male company, and Aunt Jimsie presided with a pleasantly nodding head.

Mr. Blake was present, having arrived on the early train, and certainly cast an admiring eye in Phil's direction, but he didn't say anything about it other than a polite compliment before they engaged in their usual conversation about how mutual acquaintances were faring and the general commentary flowing around them.

* * *

Anne's room was getting to be full up of confidences as Phil dropped on the bed with a dramatic sigh and shooed Rusty from his resting place.

"Do you think I should learn to cook, Anne?" Phil asked with a slight fretful tone to her voice. "I was going to wait until after I took honors in mathematics, but a minister's wife needs to know how to cook, doesn't she?"

"Not just yet," Anne reassured her. "I think Jonas would agree you should focus on your studies before attempting gingerbread again."

Phil looked somewhat mollified. "I suppose so."

"You could always ask him," Anne suggested mischievously.

"I couldn't do that," Phil protested. "And don't you tell him I can't cook at all yet."

"As if I would." Anne shook her head. "You know Jonas loves you whether or not you can cook?"

Phil shifted uncomfortably. "Oh, I know, but I don't want him to think I have no useful skills."

"You are the best, dearest, truest, loyalest friend and person, Phil. That's useful enough, I think."

Phil bounced up and hugged her and went to apply herself to mathematics again.

* * *

Jonas started to pick up the hints in the middle of winter. Well, it was more a case that they slowly began to discuss things like children and homemaking and arguing over what kinds of curtains should hang in the windows. There were moments when he would realize Phil was definitely suggesting how quickly after college she would like to get married and that despite the general openness of the conversation, she was looking at him when she said it.

"I always thought the best time to have children was after the home had been well settled," he had said before he realized what she was getting at.

"We settled Patty's Place pretty quickly," Stella pointed out.

"But that was different," Phil interjected quickly. "When it's your own home, you have more to make and sew and buy rather than borrowing from every generous relative you can find."

"I think Mrs. Lynde will gift you a quilt for your wedding," Anne suggested with a sparkle in her eye.

Phil just shot her an admonishing look and got laughed at for her pains.

Jonas wasn't slow. He knew exactly what that was all about.

* * *

_Oh, I told them at Christmas that I never could marry either of them….They felt so badly I just cried over both of them—howled._

* * *

Phil knew it wasn't all on Jonas for not asking. She had her own matters to handle and tie off, whether or not she wanted to do it. For all she said she didn't love them—and compared to what she felt for Jonas, she really, really didn't—but she liked Alec and Alonzo so well and she would miss them dreadfully and their letters full of fun and news and mutual interests.

She wasn't just a flirt though. She had told both of them she would make up her mind to marry one or the other, and so she wouldn't tell them that would never happen in a letter. She went home on Christmas break and faced them like a woman should.

"I can't marry you, either of you. I've fallen in love with someone else."

She wasn't counting on their crestfallen hurt or that Alonzo had worried since she left about just that, that some other man at college would steal her heart away, but she had her cry over both of them, and it was done.

"Don't worry, Mother. I _do_ intend on getting married after college."

Mother had always had the most decision in the house, though Father wasn't far behind, but this time Philippa had enough to match them both.

* * *

_Well, if he won't ask me to marry him I'll ask him, that's all. So it's bound to come right._

* * *

"Do you think I should go ahead and ask him?" Phil asked Anne on Saturday when it was just the two of them cleaning up after last night. Aunt Jimsie, Priscilla, and Stella were still asleep and the morning was quiet and pleasant.

Anne looked mildly amused.

"What if he doesn't ask me? I could ask him, but how long is long enough to wait?"

"Let me guess. You decided that it's absolutely been long enough, then knew that it absolutely hadn't?"

Phil gave her a chiding look. "Don't mock me, Queen Anne. No. I decided he would absolutely say yes, then I knew in my bones he wouldn't."

Phil was not used to having to worry about rejection. If her own personality and charm didn't draw the men in, usually her family and social standing made them at least consider her. But Phil loved Jonas precisely because he wasn't like that, and for so many other reasons, but he wasn't swayed by the frivolous things of this life.

"What if he _knows_ I'd make a terrible minister's wife?"

Anne protested hotly, "You'd make a lovely minister's wife, and trust me, he knows it." She stopped Phil with a hand on her arm. "Jonas wouldn't lead you on if he didn't _want_ to marry you."

"I know. I know."

But it was taking him so long. She could hardly help but wonder if it was time to take matters into her own hands, or if that would just make everything worse.

* * *

Jonas finally asked her. Phil was in the clouds, so full of joy there were no words, and she couldn't wait for him to finish the words before she was saying yes and throwing herself into his arms.

He held her, strong and steady and finally, for the first time they weren't wondering what it would be like to kiss each other or know they _belonged_ to each other. He kissed her as warmly as he smiled at her because they did belong to each other at last.

* * *

_Oh, my vacation pathway hasn't been exactly strewn with roses, girls dear. But—I've won out and I've got Jo. Nothing else matters._

* * *

Philippa Gordon finally brought Jonas Blake home to Mount Holly _after_ she'd had the whole conversation with her mother and the yelling and displeasure had come to an end. Father loved him and his quiet humor and his niceness and even Mother thawed out enough in the end that Philippa was pleased with the visit.

"Do you like them?" she asked him at the end, because she had cared about his opinion of her family as much as she'd cared about their opinion of them. "Mother did hint dreadfully, but…"

"I understand," Jonas told her quietly. "She wanted the best for you."

Phil had her own opinion on that. "Well, I have that in _you."_ She was going to delight in telling him that often and in detail.

He smiled back at her, warm and friendly, as if he'd known her since she was born, just like that moment when she'd first met him and should have known then that he would be more than just a chum.

She'd told herself once she didn't have it in her to fall in love, that she didn't ever want to be a slave to such a feeling. Despite the protests of her youth, she did indeed have it in her and she couldn't be happier.

She leaned against him and kissed him again.


End file.
